


Can You Hear Me, God? It's Me. Crowley ...

by White Queen Writes (fhartz91)



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Don't copy to another site, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Light Angst, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-08
Updated: 2019-11-08
Packaged: 2021-01-25 06:22:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21351667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fhartz91/pseuds/White%20Queen%20Writes
Summary: Crowley visits Aziraphale at his bookshop and discovers that the mail system, and Gabriel, have done him wrong yet again …
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 20
Kudos: 215





	Can You Hear Me, God? It's Me. Crowley ...

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the inbox prompt - Good Omens. Can I kiss you? Please. Thank you (If you noticed the title changed, that's because I messed it up XD)

“How come every time I come in here lately it’s a new adventure in mail shenanigans?” Crowley complains, slogging through a mound of envelopes to get to – surprise, surprise! – another, bigger mound of envelopes. “Are you subletting to Publishers Clearing House then? They’re one of ours, you know.”

“Ha-ha ...” Aziraphale grumbles from amid the largest pile, lumped on his sofa and formed into a moat around him for easy access.

“Or did you rob a post office?” Crowley leaps over the last pile and lands clumsily beside him, scattering envelopes left and right, sending them flying across the covered floor. “Because if you did, I’m tellin’ you now, that’s a _huge_ turn on.”

Aziraphale huffs in annoyance, collecting up the letters that went adrift within arm’s reach. “No such luck for you, I’m afraid. This is my latest assignment. I now get to manage the letters that humans write to God and send thru the post.”

“What are you supposed to do with all these?” Crowley picks up a handful and flips through them, searching for names or addresses he might recognize, tossing them over his shoulder when he doesn’t.

“Read them, sort them, categorize them. Anything I deem a priority gets sent to the head office.”

Crowley opens a few, hungry to cause mischief, if he can. “And what happens to them there? Do they get answered?”

“Some do.” Aziraphale clips a stack of letters together at the corner and sets them aside. “A lot of them will get re-read, re-sorted, re-categorized, and then …” He lets the sentence hang as he collects up a new stack of letters, no semblance of an emotion other than exhaustion on his face.

Crowley looks up from the letter he’s reading – a request from some slimy fuck to not let his wife find out he cheated on her with his sister-in-law. What pretentious twat would write God about something like _that_? And then be daft enough to send it through the _post_!? “Then … what?”

“They get filed away,” Aziraphale replies sadly, watching Crowley fold the letter he’s been reading and stuff it in his pocket. Aziraphale’s eyebrow arches, his eyes pointedly following the letter into Crowley’s coat, then stares at him questioningly.

“I think it best if I handle this one,” Crowley explains, patting his pocket. “Went to the wrong address, if you ask me.”

Aziraphale looks about to argue, then shrugs and lets it go, and Crowley digs into another letter.

“Okay,” he says, waving the new letter in Aziraphale’s direction. “This one’s a priority for sure!”

“What does it say?” Aziraphale asks in an even tone, as if he already knows.

“It’s from a little boy whose mum has cancer. Stage IV. He says she probably won’t live to see Christmas.”

“Right then.” Aziraphale reaches for it. “Let’s send that one up.”

“It’ll get answered, right?”

“We can only hope.”

Crowley stops, pulls the letter back. “What do you mean _we can only hope_?”

“I don’t make those decisions, Crowley. You know that.”

“But you believe this little boy deserves to be helped, right?”

“Of course, I do, but …”

“_But_ …?”

“But God decides. And whether She helps or not, She has Her reasons. We’re not allowed to question them.”

“Right.” Crowley glowers, his eyes transforming to a brighter, more venomous shade of yellow. “Of course She does. And as we both know, She makes some _bully_ choices.”

“Crowley …?” Aziraphale pleads, leaning forward, arm extended.

Crowley relents and holds the letter out. Not too relieved, Aziraphale reaches for it. But before his fingers come in contact, Crowley snaps his and the letter dissolves. Aziraphale’s eyes, half-lidded from a day of reading through humanities’ desperate pleas for help, fly open.

“Crowley! What did you …? Did you answer …?”

“I did nothing,” he says, brushing his hands together. “You saw nothing. You can’t prove a thing.”

“Crowley! I know how you feel! I really do! But let’s say that every letter here is from someone who wants the Almighty to save a dying loved one. Or themselves. And we save every single one of them. Do you know what happens then?”

“A bunch of people’s lives get saved. You’ve filled your good _deeds quota_, and humans of the world are happy. Maybe they even begin to believe in God again, did you ever think of that?”

“Yes.” Aziraphale sighs, looking decades older when that syllable passes his lips. “I did. I _have_. But as much as we hate it, there’s a system at play. _To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under Heaven.”_

“I know Ecclesiastes, angel,” Crowley grumps.

_“A time to be born, and a time to die_,” Aziraphale finishes, his heart aching with the way those words chip into Crowley’s armor. “If we don’t let humans pass when their time comes – the mothers, the fathers, the _children_ \- there won’t be any room for the new ones. The population will overwhelm them. It’ll put a strain on the planet. There will be no food for them, no clean water, no place to live.”

“They’ll find a way,” Crowley growls. “Humans always do. They’re resilient.”

“Aren’t you the one always telling me that the humans are destroying the planet? That they’re pretty much putting demons out of a job with the Evil they do?”

Crowley crosses his arms over his chest, pulling back into himself as Aziraphale speaks, his feelings on the subject wrestling sharply with Aziraphale’s logic. His _sound_ logic.

“They’ll suffer,” Aziraphale continues. “And then we’ll have a new pile of mail sitting here to go through.”

Crowley rolls his head away, eyes drifting to the closest pile of envelopes, tracing over the words written on them without actually reading them. Aziraphale’s hand, reaching for the letter, finds Crowley’s arm and squeezes gently.

“If we give every human what they want, if we save every life, we’ll be solving their problems in the short term, but that won’t last. The pain and the heartache will continue on in the long run.”

“So you’re fine destroying one person to save another?” Crowley chuckles cruelly. “Of course you are. Your lot have no problem killing innocent people over the smallest infractions, do you? Not even children.”

Those words, Crowley’s tone, hit Aziraphale hard, but he can’t take them personally. Crowley isn’t angry with him. He knows that. As difficult as it can be to remember, he does know it. “I don’t get to make …”

“You don’t get to make those decisions. I know.”

“I know you think my job here on Earth should be to save everyone. And it is, but not the way you think. I’m here to try and make people see the light at the end of the tunnel.”

“And the light _is_ …?”

“That love survives. It persists. It fights to the death. And after death, it’s still there. And if you have faith, you’ll find it.”

“You do realize that ex-es out about seventy-five percent of the population, don’t ya?”

“No. It includes people who don’t have faith in God, per se. Just because someone might not believe in the Almighty doesn’t mean the Almighty doesn’t believe in them. I think that, maybe, you know that better than anyone.”

“Shove off!” Crowley snaps between his teeth, but he doesn’t move out of the reach of Aziraphale’s hand. He goes quiet, chewing on his tongue, and considers what the angel has said. His eyes narrow angrily for a moment, but he gives up his anger with a long breath in and a doubly long exhale. “They give you the suckiest jobs, angel. Don’t they?”

“Oh, I don’t know that I get any worse than any other angel.”

Crowley shakes his head. _No. Of course Aziraphale wouldn’t see it that way, regardless of the horse shit Gabriel keeps piling on him._ “Can I kiss you?”

“Do you want to? You don’t seem too pleased with me.”

“I am. But even if I wasn’t, I would be later, so can’t we start now?”

Aziraphale’s weary expression softens with the onset of a small smile. “Sure, my dear. Why don’t you slide on over …” Aziraphale surveys the mess of envelopes between them and chuckles “… _if_ you can.”

Aziraphale carefully re-locates the nearest stack of envelopes to a clean spot on the floor while Crowley sweeps others thoughtlessly off the sofa and sits on the rest. He slides up to his angel and kisses him, not waiting a single breath for a word or a look. One arm cradles Aziraphale against Crowley’s body, distracting the angel with a hand kneading his shoulder, while behind his back, covered by that kiss, Crowley snaps a small pile of letters to his flat for future review.

Aziraphale’s fingers find Crowley’s hair and thread themselves in, pulling him closer, pulling him deeper. But behind his eyelids, covered by that kiss, Aziraphale knows what Crowley has done – how he stole those letters, how he intends on breaking the rules.

And he says nothing.


End file.
